Microsoft’s messaging on the subject hasn’t done it any favors, either. Its end-of-support page for Office 2019 for Mac, originally posted in October 2023, once told owners to “Rest assured that all your Office 2019 apps will continue to function.” A revision now dated May 15, 2026 has dropped that line, replacing it with a note that their data “can be accessed in a supported Microsoft 365 or Office product.”
I’m looking forward to giving it a whirl. I interact with other humans when sharing and developing documents, so intercompatibility with the office and Office 2003 standards is literally the second most important thing for me, and all of the arbitrary also-ran file formats are a nice to have, not a need to have.
As evidenced by the fact that even the centers can’t get on the same page about what alternative formats they feel should be mandated instead.